This record of ineffectual marches is full of pathetic interest and warning. If these halting-places had been in the straight line of march for the Land of Promise there had been little room for regret. But they were not. They recall journeys that need never to have been taken. The tribes crossed and re-crossed the desert, marking time while the bodies of the murmurers fell in the Wilderness and were wrapped about with the desert sands.
Such is the doom of unbelief. To effect nothing, to miss the rest of God, and to perish on the threshold of achievement-such is the experience of the soul described in James 1:6. God has given us in Christ the promise of rest, victory and satisfaction; let us enter upon our inheritance! [source]
Chapter Summary: Numbers 33
1The forty-two journeys of the Israelites 50The Canaanites are to be destroyed
What do the individual words in Numbers 33:17 mean?
And they departedfromKibroth Hattaavahand campedat Hazeroth
Parse: Preposition, Proper Noun, feminine singular
Root: הַתַּאֲוָה
Sense: a station of Israel in the wilderness 3 campsites away from Sinai near the gulf of Akabah.